Travel in Space and Time

 

 Letter No. 263

Dear all,

MARCH.  We had our Winosaurs evening on 4^th March (Wine club for the street). The theme was to bring a bottle of a wine which had a special memory for you. I had been saving a couple of bottles of Maclaren Vale 1993 Black Opal Cabernet Merlot, left over from our wedding in Hong Kong in 1996. I had been lugging it around the world ever since. Katie had been telling me for years that I was crazy and it would be vinegar! Our neighbour, who was hosting, has a special tool for removing aged corks and we decanted it to remove all the sediment, left it to breathe, washed the bottle and then decanted it back into the bottle. Our bottle was the oldest out of 15 so it was the last bottle to be sampled. Each person had to give a little talk about why the wine was special to them. I told the crowd how well-travelled the wine was – it had gone from Australia to Hong Kong, then to England and then back to Australia – at least twice in shipping containers with wild temperature fluctuations, hence Katie’s thoughts on it being vinegar. Anyway, my story was voted the best of the night and the wine was actually not at all bad either – a double win! I have one bottle left but might wait a few more years to open it.

Katie was back at Uni after a week’s delay due to the flooding. This is her third semester out of four. She did her internship over the summer and is now doing an intense course on Advanced Grammar and a Fiction writing class. She also has a thesis to complete by the end of the year. Jessie is in her fourth year, with another year to go. Molly is eleven now, so is in her middle years. She has no current plans for Dogversity or to learn any new skills or tricks.

On 10^th March, Jessica hosted a Sip & Paint evening for Girl Up (a girl-centred leadership initiative part of the United Nations Foundation, uniting girls to change the world). Girl Up | Who We Are), Jessie is the social media coordinator for the Asia-Pacific region. They thought that it might only be the committee and friends but were pleased that a group of about 30 people showed up at our house to paint (and sip). They were all very well organised, with food platters and Youtube painting instruction videos on a large screen, and short speeches about GirlUp. We went down at the end of the evening to have a look at some of the art works; they were all good and several were fantastic. I think Jess was very pleased at how the evening went.

We had dinner in the city at Otto for our friend Leona’s birthday on 12^th March with a group of eight friends. It’s a waterfront restaurant at Southbank, with a fantastic night view of the city lights. The river looked peaceful again, but there is still a lot of debris and damage along the banks due to the catastrophic flooding in February. Another major (and very expensive) clean-up operation for the city. It will be months before all the CityCat services are running again.

In July 2021 we were interviewed by Channel 7 about the Street Library that we have in front of our house. This library is in the form of a red British telephone box that I made a few years ago. Channel 7 broadcast the story on the Sunday evening news, and we received quite a lot of positive feedback afterwards. The most interesting was from the owners of Spicers Resorts, who contacted us to see if I would be interested in making them a blue police box (aka the TARDIS from Dr Who).  I started construction in August 2021, and now – after a lot of hard work – the Tardis has materialized in our front yard. It is getting a lot of local attention.

On 17^th March, Katie and I went to meet with the Spicers contact and view the potential new sites (they still haven’t decided). Spicers is a very upmarket resort chain, with about eight different locations. We drove up to Spicers Peak, which is located on the top of the Great Dividing Range on the way to Warwick, a 90-minute drive from home. After the meeting they shouted us a very delicious 5- course degustation lunch with matching wines. I arranged a boys’ night out on 25^th March and a group of us went to the Milton Common Brewery. We had pizza and beer (obviously) and it absolutely tipped it down rain. It seems to be the theme for this year. The next week our friend David Price was back in Australia after more than a year out of the country. It was really nice to see him again. We went out for a Chinese meal followed by cocktails at Death and Taxes in the city. 

APRIL I had promised to make Matt a cocktail bar as his Christmas present and had spent the last five weeks constructing it out of timber. He sent me a photo which I had to copy, working out all the correct dimensions and timber sizes, which was the hardest bit. I was quite pleased with it in the end. I had to get a friend around to help me lift it up onto the roof racks and we drove it to Matt’s place on Saturday 2^nd April. Matt’s flatmates enthusiastically helped us put it in place and Matt immediately whipped up a round of cocktails. More and more of his friends showed up over the next hour and it was quite the party by the time we left.

On 7^th April, Diane Powers was in Brisbane, a good friend from our Hong Kong days. She lives in Sydney now and was in town for a family wedding. Katie met her on Thursday afternoon and did touristy things and I picked them up at 5pm and we went home for cocktails at our bar and dinner. It was really nice to catch up. Her husband Paul Hart has been in Hong Kong all the time that Australia’s borders were closed; they were apart for at least 18 months during COVID lockdowns, which must have been a tough time for them. On Sunday afternoon we went to River Quay. They have free live bands on the grass bank of the river every Sunday for an afternoon “chill” and there are restaurants overlooking the riverbank. Katie was planning a picnic there in a few weeks with her Uni friends, so it was just a recce. We had dinner and drinks watching the sun go down and listening to the band.

On Wednesday 13^th April, I was invited to the Opening of the Andrew N. Liveris Building, which is the new Chemical Engineering Building at the University of Queensland. AECOM did all of the engineering design for the building (and I signed it off structurally). Jessie is also in the Liveris Academy, which gives her a UQ scholarship and she had been selected to attend the event as one of the five student representatives. It was really nice to see her there and introduce her to my colleagues who worked on the building. There were speeches and a drinks reception from 3pm to 5pm.  As soon as the event finished I had to rush back into the city where I met my friend John, so we could see Midnight Oil at the Riverstage. It was the 12^th that I have seen them time (as far as I can remember) and it is apparently the last time they will tour. It was a really fantastic show!

We hosted a family lunch on Easter Sunday. It is both my parents’ birthdays around that time. We don’t seem to have had the whole family together for such a long time. Everyone came over to our house and we had a nice BBQ lunch. We all did RAT tests before we met up to make sure we didn’t infect each other!

On 19^th April, I was interviewed by the Courier Mail about the TARDIS and the forthcoming Open Day. They sent a photographer over at around 4pm and he arrived with a huge amount of cameras and lights. Katie had to help hold the lighting tripods to get the perfect angle. The photographer was at our house for over an hour and took about 300 photos. He made me do heaps of dopey poses, peering out of the door until he got the shot he wanted. Luckily, when it was printed, the photo was quite small so you couldn’t see how silly I looked. I was also interviewed about the Tardis by Craig Zonka on ABC Radio Brisbane on 29^th April. It was very early in the morning, just before 6am, and we thought it unlikely that anyone would hear it. Surprisingly, when I got to work that morning, the first person I ran into had heard it!

The Courier Mail article made it into the paper on Saturday 30^th April, and the same article was published in lots of regional papers all over Australia. I had people sending me clippings from Adelaide and Townsville. That same day was our Tardis Open Afternoon. We had put a notice on our local community Facebook group, inviting anyone who was interested to come and have a look at it before it moved to Spicers. Quite a few people had come around regularly over the last few months to look at my progress as the Tardis has materialised, so I wanted to give them the chance to see it properly before it disappeared. The Open Afternoon went from 1pm to 3pm, and about 50 fans came, some wearing Dr Who T-shirts. One guy even brought his own Sonic Screwdriver. Everyone wanted a photo with the Tardis and to see if it is bigger on the inside (and it is - via the mirrors on all internal walls!). Some people had come up to 30km to see it, having heard about the open day on the radio or in the paper. One lady brought her very disabled daughter, who was a big Dr Who fan; they had driven a long way and it was heart-warming to see how excited she was.

After the Open Afternoon finished, we then had a Tardis Opening party for our neighbours and a few close friends, starting at 4pm. We had invited about 60 people, mostly from our street, and nearly everyone came along bringing bottles and nibbles. I gave a speech, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and spent a lot of time checking out the Tardis! We expected to finish up about 7pm but were still sitting around the fire at 10:30pm. It was a fun day and a great evening, but the next day was a little slow.

MAY The next week saw Katie working at the Brisbane Writers Festival from 3^rd to 8^th May. She spent most of the week working on the signing desk, training volunteers and working on the promotional video. She got to meet lots of famous authors including Isaac Asimov, J K Rowling, J R R Tolkien and Stephen Hawking. (ED Hahaha no, but I did meet Thomas Keneally, Clementine Ford, Trent Dalton, Morris Gleitzman & Peter Greste). She seemed to have a really fun week.

On Friday 6^th May, I went to see an INXS cover band at the Chardon’s Corner Hotel. The hotel was pretty rough, and the decor was straight out of the 80s. We had planned to eat at the pub before the show, but the barman advised us not to as the food wasn’t that good. He suggested ordering a take-away pizza from a shop up the road and bringing it back to the pub! Luckily, as more and more patrons for the show started showing up it didn’t seem quite as threatening, as they were all in their 50s and early 60s. The stage had a huge metal barrier between the band and the audience, so they obviously have rowdy crowds! The INXS cover band was fantastic though, so we had a great evening.

The next weekend we were meant to be going to the Gold Coast. We had tickets for a Race Day event at the GC Turf Club with a group of friends on Saturday 14 May. Katie had been feeling a bit under the weather but had been testing negative for COVID for a few days. She did a final test about an hour before we were going to leave for the Gold Coast, and unfortunately she tested positive, so we had to cancel. Luckily we got a full refund for the hotel, but the event tickets went to waste. Under COVID rules, I could have gone but would have had to wear a mask and I decided that would not be much fun. Our Tardis delivery trip was also postponed due to the recent heavy rain damaging the road up to the Peak.

Matthew was having his annual Eurovision Party for his friends on Sunday night using our Studio, so Katie had to isolate in our bedroom, and I had to do all the catering this time. It was hard work! Jessie assisted and we had quite a good night. There were some very creative costumes as always. Jess sent Katie photos of each of them, and after dinner Katie announced the winner of the best dressed costume competition via FaceTime. She said it was hard to choose between the top two – a giant piece of Lego (Denmark) and a giant yellow and blue Chicken Kiev (Ukraine). In the end, the winner was Ukraine. For the next 10 days Katie isolated in our bedroom and the study, while I stayed downstairs in Matthew’s old room and just came upstairs to cook. Thankfully, Jessie and I didn’t catch Covid and a week later Katie tested negative and could rejoin society. She had a nasty lingering cough for a few weeks though.

On Sunday 29 May we went to see an exhibition that Jessie has been working on called My Little Sunshine. The project is a compilation of an audio documentary, interactive art exhibition, virtual exhibition, and photo book, collected over four years of working with families and staff from Hummingbird House, Queensland’s only children’s hospice. Hummingbird House provides care and support for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions and their families. The exhibition tells personal audio narratives of two families, documenting their strength and resilience through their journeys and experiences with grief, joy and loss. Jess is the social media coordinator for My Little Sunshine, writing and promoting media releases. The stories and messages were very sad but also incredibly moving.

Cheers, from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly 

A very belated Christmas holiday 2021!

Letter No. 262

Dear all,

December 2021.  Matt had surgery on 22 Dec to remove the wires from his right hand and our flight to Cairns was early the next morning. This tight schedule had been worrying Katie, but fortunately, everything turned out fine – Matt’s surgery was on time, so was the flight and then we drove an hour north to Port Douglas. It was great to discover that our little beach “shack” Airbnb was actually a beautiful modern beach house with fantastic facilities. It was on Four Mile Beach and just a five-minute drive from Port Douglas. We grabbed food and drinks and celebrated the start of our Christmas holiday with cocktails and a BBQ. The length of the beach is quite spectacular. Sadly, you can’t swim outside the netted areas due to the crocs and the stingers.

On Christmas Eve we drove to Mossman Gorge. There is a beautiful rainforest walk around and along the gorge which finishes at a swimming hole. It was a hot and humid day so after the walk we were ready for a swim and the water was very cool, crisp, clear and refreshing. Poor Matt had to keep his right hand high out of the water – it couldn’t get wet until his stitches were removed – but he managed a bit of careful one-handed swimming. Later that day, we went on a sunset sailing trip on the Shaolin, a traditional Chinese junk with red sails. The junk was very similar to the one we hired in Hong Kong the day after we were married for a day trip with all our overseas wedding guests. It was a beautiful calm evening, so there was more bobbing around than sailing, plus lots of sunset drinks and then dinner at the Yacht Club.

The next day was the very relaxed Christmas Day – a long leisurely brunch, presents and day on the beach, then on to the nearby Pullman Port Douglas for cocktails by the pool and a spectacular seafood smorgasbord dinner. After dinner, the quickest way home was to walk about 1km along the beach in the dark. About halfway, Jess decided this was a bad idea and that we were all going to get taken by crocs. Luckily, we made it back uneaten.

The next couple of days involved a stroll around the Port Douglas markets, a swim in the beach netted area, dinner at Hemingway’s Brewery on the dock and then a full day trip to the Daintree Rainforest at Cape Tribulation. We started with a croc-hunting boat trip along the Daintree River. We spotted about ten crocs from babies to about 3 metres long. There were no really huge ones like we’d seen a few years earlier in the Mary River in the Northern Territory and they don’t feed the crocs to make them jump out of the water. It seemed better to see the crocs in a more natural environment though.

We drove on to the Daintree Discovery Centre. It has a series of walks in the rainforest, suspended aerial tree walks, lookout towers high in the treetops and a centre with exhibits of the freshwater fish found in the rainforest streams. It was very good. There were reports of seeing cassowaries around the centre but we didn’t see one while we were there. Afterwards, we drove about 100m down the road and there was a huge, brightly-coloured cassowary, right next to the side of the road. We were very lucky. It is quite rare to see them in the wild. We stopped and watched it for about five minutes, wondering whether it might cross the road.

We drove on up to Cape Tribulation and had lunch at the Turtle Rock Café. While we were eating there was a tremendous downpour of rain. It didn’t last long, but I had to take off my shoes and wade through knee deep water to get back to the car! This was the end of the sealed road going north so we turned back. On the way back to Port Douglas we stopped at Noah Beach to walk to another lookout. When we were there, we were startled to see people swimming in the sea! Afterwards, back at the beach, we saw a tour guide tearing shreds off the German tourists who had somehow walked right past the huge sign saying “Danger Crocodiles – No Swimming” with a big picture of a ferocious crocodile with large teeth. On the way home, we stopped for ice cream and then had another lovely BBQ dinner at our beautiful beach shack. We were sad to leave as it had been the great relaxing Christmas holiday home.  

Our second destination was the Atherton Tablelands. This area is known for spectacular rainforest walks, waterfalls, caves and strangler figs. Sadly, we didn’t get to see many of them, as it started to rain just as we headed up to the tablelands and then rained almost non-stop while we were there. We did manage a quick rainforest hike at Barron Falls enroute, saw the historic Skyrail steam train, visited Kuranda Village (quaint little market town filled with craft shops and restaurants) and fluttered around the Butterfly Farm. The cool, wet evenings were spent at the Atherton pub or Indian restaurant listening to the rain tumble down. Other wet weather activities included a fabulous morning tea at the Skybury Coffee Plantation and a stop at the Mt Uncle Distillery to sample some of their unusual spirits like Christmas pudding gin. One afternoon Jessie and I went to the Crystal Caves. It was a spectacular display of rocks, crystals, minerals and fossils from all over the world that a local guy had collected over decades. It is worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Atherton on a rainy afternoon!

Heading onwards, a two-hour drive took us to our third destination Mission Beach, south of Cairns. Just as we arrived the sun came out again. We stayed in a lovely resort with a pool, great Italian restaurant and live music afternoons on the beach. We had a couple of slow days on the beach and at the pool, enjoying the FNQ lifestyle. On New Year’s Eve we hired a speedboat and boated around Dunk Island before pulling up for a morning on the beach. It was close to the Dunk Island Resort, which had been mostly destroyed in Cyclone Yasi in 2011 and is only now having minor restoration work. It was pretty interesting looking at the ruins. It was a spectacular day, and we swam and snorkelled off the beach. In the evening, we had a lovely Italian dinner in the resort before heading into Mission Beach village. We found a hip hopping bar (actually, the only hip bar in town) with a live band. Actually, all the restaurants and bars in Mission Beach seemed to have an aged singer or guitarist in the corner. There was a great party atmosphere and I think the entire town was there. We all danced until midnight.

On our last full day, we had a fabulous boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was glorious. It took about 1.5 hours for our boat to get to a small sand cay where we moored and went snorkelling. Matthew still couldn’t get his right hand wet, so we had to wrap it in a double layer of plastic bags, tape it up tightly and then he snorkelled using a child’s floatie we had bought specially to keep it out of the water. After a great buffet lunch, we moved to another site and I went diving. There were about 10 people diving and 20 snorkelling. All the other divers were beginners, so I had a different instructor and had a really great dive. I hadn’t been since Fiji four years ago, but it is just like riding a bike.

Next morning, we drove back to Cairns and dropped Matt off to meet up with his group of friends; he was spending another week in Port Douglas. He got his stitches out the next day and was then able to go swimming with both hands and even managed to go diving. His recovery has been amazing and he just needs a bit of ongoing physio now. Our flight to Brisbane wasn’t until the afternoon so Katie, Jess and I went to the Cairns Aquarium for a few hours. It was one of the best aquariums I have been to and a nice way to round off our trip to Far North Queensland.

January 2022.  Back home, we discovered that Covid had well and truly arrived in Brisbane. It seemed that everyone under 25 had it. Jessie went straight over to her boyfriend’s house and then called the next day to say that he wasn’t feeling very well. She and James didn’t think headaches, chills and feeling unwell were a sign of Covid, but we insisted that they get tested and surprise, surprise, he had Covid, and that meant that Jessie had it too. Katie initially told Jessie not to come home, but when she did we set up the house with two zones with Jessie downstairs and us upstairs and a huge barrier between them. We fed Jess on disposable plates which she put straight in the bin and even Molly was barred from going downstairs to see her. Jessie had a sniffle and a cough, but it wasn’t too bad. She isolated for seven days and was well and truly sick of her own company at the end of it!

Matthew started his new full-time job with KWM (King & Wood Mallesons) on 12^th January. It is the company where he has been working as a paralegal for the last few years. They had offered him the opportunity to circumvent the graduate program altogether and move straight into a Junior Solicitor role.  He started working on the Royal Commission into Veteran Suicide, which he said was very confronting at times.

We had a fairly quiet January otherwise. It is not PC to do anything too celebratory on Australia Day now so we had our friends the Biddles and Rasmussens over for a BBQ in lieu on 22^nd January instead. Katie and I just went out for a quiet lunch by ourselves on the Australia Day public holiday. We went to a lovely restaurant with river views in the city, but it bucketed down rain all day – a taste of the things to come!

Katie and Jess went to Sydney on 28^th January to see Katie’s Uni friend Olivia. It was a flying visit but they had a great time visiting Manly, The Rocks markets, Museum of Contemporary Art, Darling Harbour and doing lots of shopping. The highlight was seeing “Six – The Musical”, about the six wives of Henry VIII, at the Opera House. They all thought it was brilliant.

February.  On 9^th February we went to see the movie Death on the Nile. It was combined with a wine tasting at the Barracks Movie theatre. We went with a group of friends and Matthew came as well. He loves Agatha Christie movies.  The following weekend we went to Gin School. Katie had given me a voucher for Christmas. It was a very swish bar which had a back room set up like an art deco conservatory with 24 mini stills set up. We had a two-hour session, with four different gin cocktails, a cheese platter and instructions on how to make our own 500ml bottle of gin. You could pick your own “botanicals” to flavour your gin and colour it as well. Katie made a Pink Jasmine Gin flavoured with pear and mandarin, and I made Blue Chilli Dragon Gin. It was a really fun evening and we will go again.

It was a wet February but on 25^th a Rain Bomb settled over Brisbane and didn’t move for three days. It was the most intense rain I have ever seen. Torrential rain, literally non-stop for three solid days. We had 950mm of rain in those three days and it fell over a very large area of South East Queensland, mainly Brisbane and the outskirts, with all the rain ending up in dams and river catchments. It was insane! On Friday, the media said Brisbane wouldn’t flood; on Saturday morning they said there could be minor flooding; by Saturday night they were predicting major flooding but nothing like the 2011 floods. In the end, it went close. The flood height was 4.2m in Brisbane City (it had been 4.6m in 2011). Thousands of houses went under again, Citycats were sunk, and lots of pontoons, jetskis, luxury yachts and houseboats went sailing down the river and smashed into bridges. Areas of the city centre and the South bank cultural precinct flooded and lost power. The damage to the city ran into the billions again.

Meanwhile Jessie had been at university at an indoor conference all day Saturday and then went straight into the city after her event. Everything had happened so quickly that she hadn’t heard about the chance of flooding. We had been texting her to make sure she had parked her car on high ground, but she didn’t see the messages, and then went straight into the city after her event. On Sunday morning she went out to pick up her car from Uni in St Lucia, still oblivious. She was surprised to discover that public transport wasn’t running properly and there were no buses. She managed to get an Uber part of the way, but it stopped when there was floodwater over the road, about two kilometres from her car. She tried to walk there through the teeming rain, but eventually called us when she realised how bad things were.

I went to pick her up but it was a challenge to get there as so many roads were cut. I used the high roads and drove around a roadblock and managed to get to her and then on to Uni. We got within 100m of her car and had to wade through thigh-deep water. Astonishingly, the car park was still dry, but her car was the only one in it. We weren’t sure if she could get off the campus or not, but at least she could move the car to higher ground. I waded back through the floodwater to my car, while Jess was directed by a security guard to drive through the pedestrian areas of the campus to get to a high road, as all the other roads were cut. In the meantime, I copped a sound telling off by a different security guard for driving through the roadblock. He said I should have let the car flood because it was too dangerous. I managed to meet up with Jess and she followed me home, on a circuitous route around all the flooded streets. She said it was all very scary and she will look at our messages properly in future.

On Sunday morning I also helped a friend who lives right on the river, to clear all the furniture from his house’s ground floor up to his first-floor level or onto higher ground. Fortunately, in the end his house didn’t flood. It was sandbagged by some other friends on the Monday and the river came within 50mm of getting in the house. It ruined his grass tennis court, took his jetty and flooded his beautiful garden which he had spent two years building in Covid lockdowns, but they got off relatively lightly compared to so many others. Graceville, and other nearby suburbs like Rocklea, Oxley, Tennyson and Yeronga were all badly flooded. The next weekend we had a working party to put all the furniture back in place.

I went into work on the Monday. The traffic was light despite a convoluted route around flood roads; I think most people had decided to stay home. On Tuesday the traffic was insane! People were starting to get out and about, but so many main roads were flooded that it took 1.5 hours each way to the office, which I can do in 20 minutes on a good run. I worked from home for the rest of the week. One morning I went for a cycle. The flood damage was pretty horrific. There was a thick layer of smelly mud everywhere, piles of flotsam and rotting debris, blocked paths and roads. It was pretty hairy riding!

Cheers, from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

Merry Christmas!!!!

                                                                                                                                              Letter No. 261

Dear all,

OCTOBER was quite a social month. We also went to one of our favourite local restaurants Botellon for dinner for our friends Sue and Carolyn’s birthdays on Friday 22 October. They have their birthdays on the same day. A week later, our friend Libby had her 50^th birthday party. She only lives about five houses down our street, so it was pretty convenient. She did a sit-down dinner for 50 people and a live band. She did all of the organisation by herself which was a big solo effort. It was a nice evening with all the usual fun stuff – dancing, drinking & eating.  

Matthew finally finished his six years at Uni on Thursday 28 October. He completed his double degree and now has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from The University of Queensland. He then went up to Noosa for a fun weekend to celebrate with all his mates, and to do the Noosa Triathlon (on Sunday 31 October) for the third time, as part of a relay team. Sadly, he had a rather catastrophic accident during the triathlon bike leg. He hit something, went over the handlebars and absorbed his full body weight with both hands. Without realising how badly he had injured himself, and thinking that he had possibly broken a finger, he still managed to put the bike chain back on, finish the race, see the medic and get the finger strapped, then go for lunch with his mates, have a shower and drive himself home!! None of his friends can drive a manual car so there wasn’t much alternative. As he headed home he started to realise that the problem might be worse than he’d initially thought. He drove straight to our house, by which time both hands, knees and left shoulder were all swollen and bruised, with lots of cuts and scrapes. It was a bit of a shock.

I took him straight to the PA hospital about 7pm, expecting casts on one hand and strapping on the other. The PA was fantastic and he was extensively x-rayed, MRI-d and CAT scanned. He even had his head examined. It seemed that he had been very lucky and had escaped any damage to his head, and only had bruising to his knees and shoulder, which all turned interesting shades of yellow and green afterwards. The outcome for both hands was bad though, with multiple fractures especially his left ring finger, left wrist, right thumb and right hand, which would require bone graft, wires, pins/screws and multiple surgeries to come. A bit more of a shock. At midnight he was admitted, and they told us they would operate on both hands in the morning. However, by midday the next day he was still 10^th in the queue for surgery and they said he wouldn’t get seen that day (there had been some car accidents, so he had been bumped). They then bounced us into the private system, as we have private health insurance, and made an appointment to see a specialist hand surgeon the next morning at the Brisbane Hand & Upper Limb Clinic. Katie brought Matt home, with enormous temporary plaster casts on both hands, and then started the strange new experience of having our grown-up, highly independent 22-year-old living back at home with us for the short-term, unable to do anything whatsoever with his hands – including all the things we take for granted like using a knife, picking up a kettle, tying his shoelaces, driving etc. Interesting times.

NOVEMBER The next day was Melbourne Cup Day. Katie and I had tickets to an event at the Doomben Racecourse in Ascot. The event didn’t start until 11am and Matt’s appointment was at 8am so I took him in and we thought there would be plenty of time. The surgeon said he didn’t want to operate while Matthew still had open wounds on his hands, due to the risk of a bone infection, so it would now be at least two weeks before surgery! We then went into the Rehab Physio place so where his hands were properly cleaned, bandaged and splinted. It took forever! I dropped Matt home, had a quick change and headed off to the races. Katie had already left with a friend and I met them at the racecourse around noon. We had a really nice day, sitting right next to the finish line which was quite exciting, and there was glorious spring sunshine. Somehow Katie managed to back the winner on pretty long odds, and we seemed to pick a winner on most races! It was most unexpected and very lucky, and we came out at least $500 up! I had to have a little nap when we got home, after such a stressful and exciting day.

That weekend, 5-7 November, I went Hiking in Girraween National Park for two days with my friend Derek. We took a day off work on the Friday and drove down. It was a three-hour drive past Stanthorpe. We stopped at a few wineries on the way before getting to the Girraween Environmental Lodge. It was fairly basic and there had been a camping option, but as it was bucketing down rain, we were glad we hadn’t selected that option. After checking in we went to the campground and sympathised with the rest of tour group setting up in the rain, before going to Ballendean Tavern for dinner and a few games of pool.

We then had two days of hiking in the park. The first day was 18km covering Mt Norman (the tallest in the park) and the underground creek. The country is spectacular with massive granite boulders and slabs. There had been a lot of rain in the previous few weeks, so all the creeks were running, and the wildflowers were in bloom. It was a great sight. We were quite knackered by the time we got back. It had been predicted to rain quite a bit during the day, but we only got a few spots in the afternoon. This was lucky as it is almost impossible to walk on the granite slabs if it rains, as they are so slippery. We had a night in at our lodge with a beef ragout and a few red wines and listened to the rain. We were again thankful we had not camped.  The next day it was predicted to thunderstorm by midday, so we started early and did a shorter walk of only 8km to the Junction and the Granite Arch. We had lunch back at the campsite before heading back to Brisbane. It didn’t end up raining during the day anyway!

In the meantime, Katie and Jessie both worked like mad on their final assignments and finished Uni for the year on 8 November. Katie had been slightly derailed by having to complete her last two major assignments in her final week while driving Matt around to additional X-rays and bone density scans but managed it anyway. It was a great relief to all.

Matthew’s surgery was scheduled for Wednesday 10^th and then Friday 12^th November but kept getting pushed back as his skin wounds hadn’t healed enough. It was a bit galling that both times the surgery was postponed so late in the day that he already had his bag packed and was “nil by mouth”.  It finally took place at 7pm on Monday 15^th November at St Andrew’s Hospital and was a 3½ hour surgery in which he had a bone graft, screws and wires. Katie collected him next morning with massive plaster casts again, and he then went straight on to appointments at the Brisbane Private Hospital and then the Physio afterwards, where he was fitted with new splints. We are starting to feel that we are on a mission to survey every hospital and x-ray/physio establishment in Brisbane. Matt has remained incredibly positive throughout the whole process though. He was still smiling and determined to do everything he had planned, including starting his PLT (Professional Legal Training) course the following day, and discovering that you can still type with only five working fingers. His work colleagues at KWM have been fantastically supportive too.

We had Backyard Drinks at my friend Derek’s house on 19^th November. It was a lovely warm evening with a total eclipse of the moon that night. We sat on his front deck and watched the show with a glass or two of red wine. The next day we went to see the latest James Bond movie, “No time to Die”. The ending was a surprise. I won’t spoil it for you but will definitely be going to the next movie to see what happens next! Worth seeing if you haven’t.

On 22^nd November Jessica went to the Liveris Academy Summer Camp on Stradbroke Island for four days. They spent four days doing a role-playing activity, working in four groups and writing business plans for a fictitious struggling start up. They even had actors who the kids had to “fire” in a real-life simulation activity. It was apparently fairly intimidating for 23-year-olds to fire a fairly belligerent 40 year old, even if he was acting. One group was so intimidated that they decided not to fire him, which nearly stuffed up the whole exercise! On Friday night we were invited to the Liveris Academy at the University of Queensland to see the students present on two topics, working in small groups. Five teams presented their strategies for revitalising the economy of Gladstone after a predicted downturn due to the future transition away from coal and gas. Three groups presented ideas to minimise micro plastics in the oceans. There was a winner in each group and we were very pleased that Jessica’s team won the plastics section. There was a drinks function afterwards in the Liveris Academy function space. It was a doubly pleasant evening for me as I had led the structural design team for the Andrew N. Liveris Building at the University and had never seen it fitted out. I had only been to site when it was bare concrete. It is actually a very impressive building, with several structurally difficult bubble pods hanging off the building everywhere. We had cursed the architect when we were designing them, but boy they looked good! You can see more information about the Liveris Academy and a video of the cool building here:  https://liveris-academy.uq.edu.au/

On the Sunday Jessica was in a Cheer Leading Dance Competition. Jess is one of the people called flyers who get thrown up high and caught by the others. Jessie didn’t want us to go and watch, and Katie would have been too nervous to watch anyway. Amazingly Jessie’s team won the competition in their own category and were the overall Grand Champions. She was thrilled. A huge week for her!

DECEMBER On 1^st December the UQ semester results were out. Everyone did very well, with the family GPA of 6.5 (out of 7). Katie was the family top scorer with straight sevens (again). Both Jess and Katie received Dean’s Commendations for Academic Excellence. The next few weekends were big. Katie went to see the Queensland Ballet performing Dracula on Friday night with some girlfriends while I went to works drinks. Saturday was a 60^th birthday party for our friend Jeremy Tod. It was a great party.  They were planning to have cocktails on their tennis court but a massive thunderstorm came through just as the party was starting so they had to quickly relocate undercover. There was a massive lightning strike to a house in the next street about 8pm and everyone screamed – it was quite a shock! Katie lost track of time and made a good effort to beat her record of 13 glasses of champagne (led astray by Liz Redfern many years ago in Hong Kong). She didn’t manage to set a new record, but I had to drag her home at 2:30am which is an extremely late night for us! Sunday was a sloooow day.

On Tuesday 7^th December we had a family dinner at home for Matthew’s 23^rd Birthday which was nice. He spent his actual birthday (the next day) at the Ashes test match between England and Australia. The England team has not covered itself in glory thus far. The following weekend we spent several nights out at various Christmas cocktails and Christmas drinks parties. There were two parties in our street on consecutive evenings hosted by different sets of neighbours, with many of the same guests at both, which we all found very entertaining.

On Monday 13^th December it was Matthew’s Graduation Ceremony. We had a fabulous long lunch at Greca, a Greek restaurant at Howard Smith Wharves, which has a lovely view over the river. Afterwards, we went back to Matt’s place for afternoon tea before going to the university for the ceremony. Matthew’s two housemates were in the same graduation ceremony, so it was quite a household celebration, with all parents in attendance. We drove to Uni, picked up his gown and trencher, and then wandered around the Great Court and the Law Building taking photos before the ceremony. It was about two hours of speeches and presentations, followed by drinks in the Great Court afterwards. Matthew is the proud recipient of a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Chinese and International Relations. He starts as a junior solicitor at King Wood Mallesons (KWM) in January. He has been working there for the last three years as a part-time paralegal, so it will be a relatively smooth transition to full time employment.  https://www.kwm.com/au/en/home.html  

The following few days featured more drinks, my birthday and my work Christmas party, for my immediate team of 25, which I was hosting (so I had to stay until the bitter end). I wish all the partying could be spread out over three or four months rather than all being in December! On Sunday 19^th we had an early Family Christmas with my sister and her family and our parents at Lisa’s house. It was a really nice afternoon and good to catch up, as we haven’t seen each other very much this year due to Covid. We are heading to Far North Queensland on Thursday for Christmas at the beach but that will all have to wait until next letter.

Cheers, from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

25th Wedding Anniversay!

 

 Letter No. 260

Dear all,

JULY  It was Katie’s birthday in July and it was an all-weekend celebration. On Saturday night we went for a dinner with a group of six friends at Stanley’s, the Chinese restaurant at Howard Smith Wharves. It is a great location under the Story Bridge. We had pre-dinner drinks at Felons Brewery and post-dinner cocktails at Fantauzzi. The next day we had a family lunch at Popolo, an Italian restaurant on Southbank. Katie managed to pull in a couple of lunches with girlfriends the following week to stretch the birthday out even further. Matt had given Katie a voucher for High Tea as a mother’s day present earlier in the year. They finally went there on 19 July. It was at a new restaurant called Matriarch in New Farm and was a pretty swish afternoon tea with four cocktails! We had to make our own dinner. 😊

It is our 25^th Wedding Anniversary in October this year. For Katie’s Birthday I gave her a mystery trip away and didn’t tell her where we were going until we got there! She did guess on the way though. We had a mid-week three-day break in Springbrook in the mountains behind the Gold Coast, staying in the same place where I proposed, 25 years ago. I had actually managed to book the same lovely log cabin in the forest at Springbrook Mountain Chalets. I had also tried to book the same restaurant for dinner one night but unfortunately it had closed down. We stopped for an early lunch in a little country café on the way and had a great short hike that afternoon to Purling Brook Falls – only about 4km but with fabulous views of the Gold Coast, mountains and an impressive waterfall. The next day we went to “The Best Lookout of All”, and it was possibly true, with fantastic uninterrupted views over the whole Gold Coast and northern NSW. We also went for another hike on the Twin Falls circuit. Another afternoon reading by the fireplace (Katie is still studying!) and a nice dinner in our log cabin. The next morning we went to the Natural Bridge for a walk and a chance to admire the natural beauty and the glowworm caves. It was a great little minibreak and nice to revisit a place which is quite special to both of us after so many years.

Katie got her first Pfizer vaccine on 27^th July. She had a LOT of difficulty getting an appointment. I had signed up about a week before she did and got both mine relatively easily, while Katie had to wait for at least two months to even get registered. The Queensland online booking system is hopelessly over-complicated and seemingly random, and in the end she gave up and just kept phoning around all the private clinics until she got an appointment.

On Friday 30^th July we hosted the Mortlake Fine Wine Appreciation Club (Morfwac’s), otherwise known as the Winosaurs. It is a group of 15 families who live in our street. We get together every two to three months on a Friday night, taking turn to host. Everyone brings a bottle of fine wine and some nibbles. Some people take it VERY seriously, so you need to pick a nice wine and research it thoroughly and then verbally present some form of wine tasting information. It’s actually a very entertaining evening and not as formal as it sounds. It usually runs from 6pm to 8pm, with a few hangers on until 9:30pm. It was a good evening.

The next day Covid came to Brisbane and we went into a three day lockdown which was extended a few days later to an 8 day lockdown. It was all over the Western suburbs and centred in Indooroopilly, which is very close to us. Quite a few of the university locations were hotspots as well and Katie had been at one of them and had to get tested. Fortunately, the testing system was extremely well organised with testing centres popping up everywhere, and it was quick and her test was negative. It was Week 2 of the University term so everything instantly went online for a couple of weeks.

AUGUST On 2 August Jessica had an Adenoidectomy. She has had constant problems with breathing and a snuffly nose ever since she had Glandular Fever a couple of years ago. She had her tonsils out last year and this year her specialist advised her to have the adenoids removed as well. As we were in lockdown, we were surprised that the surgery was going ahead, but the specialist explained that her nasal passages were so blocked that it wasn’t “elective surgery”, it was actually “essential surgery” as he considered her to be respiratory compromised! This was even more of a surprise as we hadn’t realised her breathing had become so bad. I dropped her in at 6:30am and brought her home at 4:30pm. Jessie was in a little bit of pain afterwards (but not as much as after the tonsillectomy) but could tell by the next day that the surgery had been a success. Hopefully this is the end of our hospital dramas for a while.

The lockdown lasted a whole nine days but was lifted in time for us to go to dinner with some ex-AECOM work colleagues Sigrid and Nathan. We went for Spanish Tapas in Botellon preceded by cocktails at Boucher. Sigrid has just got a new job so we were happy to celebrate with them. Whenever we see Nathan and Sigrid we always have big nights and huge fun! The next day we went to the European Masterpieces exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery. This is a touring exhibition of art masterpieces from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, providing a 500-year journey in art from the 1420s and emerging Renaissance, to the height of early twentieth century post-impressionism. It included works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Turner, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, and Monet, all direct from The Met’s collection which is one of the finest collections of European painting in the world. Most of these works rarely leave permanent display in New York, so it was a unique treat and a spectacular exhibition. We had a quick lunch at the Gallery afterwards before a lazy Sunday afternoon at home.

Saturday 28^th August was a huge day. In the morning a group of eight of us went on the Ride for Suggy -- a 40km memorial bike ride for one of our friends who had committed suicide four years ago and had been a keen cyclist. We had a nice ride and stopped at the Regatta for a beer about two-thirds of the way through. I stopped at home briefly for a shower and then the group reconvened for a late long lunch at Jeremy Tod’s house where he had a great pulled pork slow barbecuing. I had made a chocolate cheesecake as my contribution – I had actually made it myself rather than sub-contracting that job to Katie as I thought it was a boys’ only event. Then all the wives started showing up, so I called Katie to come along as well. Anyway, it was a lovely long afternoon of socialising, eating and drinking and everyone was just settling into the red wine, when we had to leave! We were already committed to a 60^th birthday party that night, starting in the city at 6pm. So we screamed home to change and headed off to the city, where the first part of the party was a private screening of the movie The Fountainhead, starring Gary Cooper and Patricia Neall, and based on Ayn Rand’s novel of the same name. The story focuses on an architect who refuses to comprise his artistic integrity. The party was for our architect friend Derek Trebilcock, and this is apparently his favourite movie. We had drinks and nibbles before the movie and dinner during the movie and then afterwards went back to Derek’s to party on. It had been a long boozy day with a lot of exercise for me so by the time we got back to his home in Graceville I was starting to fade! I had to have a little nap on the front porch while Katie made conversation for both of us and finally woke me up in time to wobble home.

SEPTEMBER For Father’s Day on 5 September the kids came over and we had a roast dinner on Sunday night. Two nights later it was Jessica’s 20^th birthday and we went out for dinner at the Tuk Tuk Thai restaurant in Milton which was very nice.  Jessica also had an evening picnic that Friday with a group of her friends at River Quay on South Bank. She needed someone to assist with bringing picnic blankets, food and drinks so Katie drove them in. I met Katie and we had dinner at a nearby restaurant and went back and picked up the leftovers and gifts while Jess and her friends went on clubbing in the Valley.

Katie has been finding this second semester very intense with more assignments and deadlines than the first one, so we haven’t done as much. However, we did both take a day off on Friday 17 September and drove up to the Carnival of Flowers in Toowoomba for the day. We went to two orchid shows and bought a heap of orchids which are good value at the orchid show. Then we went to the very lovely Boyce Gardens for a wander around. These huge and sprawling gardens with lots of different botanical areas and species were established as private gardens by leading Toowoomba citizens Leslie and Margaret Boyce over almost sixty years, and then given in trust to The University of Queensland, for the enjoyment and education of the people of Australia. It was really lovely. We had a nice lunch and then went on to Queens Park for a wander around the expansive flower displays and a ride on the Ferris wheel.

On 21^st September the Forbes Family officially leaped ahead the rest of Australia and became 100% fully vaccinated. The process has been pretty flawed and we had to be persistent to get our appointments, but it is done now. At least until booster shots are a requirement.

I went for another great hike with my friend Derek on 26^th September. We did it with a group of 10, led by our guide Teresa, and hiked the Toolona Circuit at Lamington National Park. It was an 18km hike over quite rugged terrain and took us 8 hours. One of the tougher hikes we have done. I was quite pleased to see the car at the end.

OCTOBER It was Molly’s 11^th birthday on the 2^nd October. She is still very fit and healthy, and people still think she is a puppy but the grey hairs on her muzzle are starting to give her age away. She is such a joy to have – although slightly too barky sometimes! We took her for a day out to the beach on Sunday 10 October. We usually go to Palm Beach on the Gold Coast but decided to take her up to Currimundi Beach on the Sunshine Coast for a change. There was a nice surf beach, but it was a bit of a walk to the dog beach from the car park. Molly loved splashing and playing in the waves though and we had a nice lunch afterwards.

The next day Katie and I went to see Boy Swallows Universe at QPAC; a stage version of the novel by Brisbane writer Trent Dalton. It is a very funny story of a young boy growing up in Brisbane’s western suburbs in the 1980s and living in a dysfunctional drug dealing family. The 1980s Australian music was great, as was the fantastic story and local Brisbane references.

On 24^th October Katie and I went to the Fox & Hounds pub on Mt Tamborine for lunch. It is quite unique because almost all the internal fittings of the Fox and Hounds came from the Sussex Arms pub in Tunbridge Wells. The entire pub interior was transported out, beams, carpet, decorations and all. The pub was originally built in the 1700s, so the original features of the hotel are older than the first settlers in Australia! The pub is packed with British memorabilia. They do regular monthly events to mark British occasions and this month was a Dr Who exhibit, so we went to look at their full-sized blue Tardis, as well as their English red telephone box like the one I made. I had a specific reason for going in fact, as I have been commissioned by the Spicers Hotel group to construct a Tardis for them and wanted to see how mine compared. Mine is only half constructed but I can see already it will be much better!

This came about through an interesting connection. We were interviewed in July for a Channel 7 news feature about Street Libraries. They had contacted the Street Library Association of Australia for recommendations of good libraries in Brisbane. They did a fairly long news feature, and our library was the most impressive, with Katie and I getting the most airtime. It played on the Sunday evening news and the owners of the Spicers group saw the story and decided they would like a Tardis built, as they already have a genuine red telephone box at one of their hotels. One of their staffers knows Katie and got in contact with us. After lots of planning and agonising over how much to charge them, I started construction in August, using plans from the website that I had used to build the red phone box a few years earlier. It will take up all my Saturdays for about a year! But I love doing carpentry jobs and this time I am getting paid for it – even better!

It was our Silver Wedding Anniversary on 12^th October. We celebrated at Rico’s, a fabulous seafood restaurant in Eagle Street Pier. It has been a privilege to have Katie by my side as my best friend, supporter and confidant for the past 25 years. She must be a saint to put up with me! We followed this up with a family dinner at Kafé Meze on Sunday evening to allow the kids to join in the celebrations. Katie bought me a silver cocktail shaker and I had a special silver present which I didn’t give to her, as an emergency shortage of perfume made that a more critical gift. The silver present will have to wait for Christmas now.

Cheers, from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly